Getty Museum

Border with Athaliah Ordering the Massacre of the King's Children

Creator

Flemish Illuminator · 1483–1561

Artist

One of the most celebrated painters of Flanders in the 1500s, Simon Bening was hailed by Portuguese art critic Francisco da Hollanda as the greatest master of illumination in all of Europe. In addition to producing books for powerful aristocrats such as Cardinal Albrecht of Brandenburg, Bening worked for a group of international royal patrons including Emperor Charles V and Don Fernando, the Infan

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Date: about 1525–1530
Medium: Tempera colors, gold paint, and gold leaf
Culture: Flemish
Department: Manuscripts
Institution: Getty Museum

To the right, Athaliah, mother of the recently deceased King of Judah, impassively watches soldiers slaughtering her sons' offspring so that she can become queen. The eventual restoration of the rightful ruler--a grandson who had escaped--brought an abrupt end to Athaliah's reign and her life. Medieval Christians often saw such Old Testament stories as prefigurations of New Testament stories with similar themes. In this case, the text on the page concerns Herod's order to kill all the male children of Bethlehem younger than two years old in the hopes of murdering Jesus. The miniature that would have faced this page, removed from the manuscript at some point in its history, surely depicted the Massacre of the Innocents.

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